Slow Wi-Fi at Home? 6 Fixes to Try Before You Call Anyone

Slow Wi-Fi is the number one thing people ask me about. The good news: most of the time it's not your internet plan, it's something in the house. Work through these in order.

1. Restart the right way

Unplug your modem and your router (sometimes it's one box). Wait a full 30 seconds. Plug the modem in first, wait until its lights settle, then plug in the router. This clears out a lot of glitches, and it's worth doing every month or two.

2. Test your speed in two places

Run a speed test (search "speed test" in your browser) standing next to the router, then again in the room where it's slow.

• Slow everywhere? The problem is likely your internet service or the modem. Call your provider and ask if there's an outage or if your modem is outdated.
• Fast by the router, slow far away? It's a coverage problem. Keep reading.

3. Move the router

Routers send signal out in every direction, and walls, floors, mirrors, fish tanks and big appliances block it. The best spot is:

• Central in the house, not in a corner or the garage
• Up high, like on a shelf, not on the floor
• Out in the open, not inside a cabinet or behind the TV

Just moving it a few feet can make a big difference.

4. Pick the right band

Many routers broadcast two networks, often 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz (sometimes combined into one name).

• 5 GHz is faster but doesn't travel as far or through walls as well.
• 2.4 GHz is slower but reaches farther.

Devices near the router should use 5 GHz. Smart plugs, cameras and devices far away usually do better on 2.4 GHz.

5. Find what's hogging the connection

Cloud backups, game downloads, 4K streaming and security cameras can eat your bandwidth. Pause big downloads during work calls, and check if a computer is busy syncing photos in the background.

6. Check how old your router is

If your router is more than about 5 years old, or it came free from your provider years ago, it may not keep up with how many devices you have now. A newer router, or a mesh system (a few small units placed around the house), fixes most dead zones for good.

Still slow?

Some problems take a closer look: bad cables, interference from neighbors, a failing modem or a setting buried in the router. That's what our onsite visits are for. We'll test every room, fix what's wrong and show you what we changed.